By Gary Topping–
Michael Gerson, columnist for the Washington Post, has an article in the current Atlantic which will be of interest to readers of this blog who discuss “church, religion and spirituality in the twenty-first century.” He is concerned to understand “the loyal adherence of religious conservatives to Donald Trump [who] won [in the 2016 election] four-fifths of the votes of white evangelical Christians.” This is in the face of the fact that “Trump’s background and beliefs could hardly be more incompatible with traditional Christian models of life and leadership.”
The article is all the more compelling because Gerson’s credentials as a conservative and evangelical could not be more impressive. As a graduate of Wheaton College, the “Harvard of evangelical Protestantism,” and chief speechwriter for George W. Bush, he is appalled at the way his religious and political tradition has seemed to have gone off the rails, and his article is a deeply researched, persuasively argued, and passionately written exploration of the phenomenon. In the space available here, I can only sketch the broad contours of his argument, but I enthusiastically commend the actual article to your attention.
Evangelicals in the nineteenth century, Gerson points out, were in the forefront of social reform. His alma mater, Wheaton College, was founded in 1860 by an evangelical abolitionist, and was even a station on the Underground Railroad. Other evangelical issues included temperance and reform of prisons and asylums. Unfortunately, by the early twentieth century, evangelicals found themselves being tempted to engage in debate over issues that turned out to be unwise, and that, according to Gerson, rather sidetracked the movement into positions that have not served it well.
One was their opposition to Darwinian evolution, which of course has turned out to be solid science, and that opposition has often led evangelicals into opposition to science itself. Another was their opposition to Higher Criticism, the application of linguistic and historical studies to scriptural writings. That opposition led them into a rigid and simplistic literalism. Finally, they opposed the Social Gospel, the idea that Man could save himself by social activism, and that opposition led them away from any concern at all for social justice.
That sidetracking of the original thrust of evangelicalism has led, in our own day, to major emphases on issues that are either quixotic or superficial, like the unlikely quest for an anti-abortion amendment to the Constitution, objection to the prohibition of school prayer, and opposition to same-sex marriage. Their tenacious adherence to issues like these has put them into a position of alienation from mainstream American culture, and perceiving themselves as “hysterically and with self-pity, as an oppressed minority that requires a strongman to rescue it.” And that, of course, is where Donald Trump enters the picture as their improbable protector.
“It is remarkable,” Gerson observes, “to hear religious leaders defend profanity, ridicule, and cruelty as hallmarks of authenticity and dismiss decency as a dead language.” “Christianity,” he concludes, “is love of neighbor, or it has lost its way. And this sets an urgent task for evangelicals: the rescue their faith from its worst leaders.”
